On 14 September 2012 the BMW Driving Academy will open for business. This new BMW Group driver training centre just outside Munich lies close to the heart of the company, with barely 30 kilometres separating it from BMW headquarters. The site of what used to be the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield in Maisach covers some 130 hectares (1.3 million square metres) – an ample area on which to simulate and practise every conceivable type of driving manoeuvre and situation.

“The new facility in Maisach allows us to offer our customers an array of new training options, something that hasn’t been possible up to now due to space restrictions,” says Robert Eichlinger, Head of BMW and MINI Driving Experience. “Here, our customers can now experience and learn to deal with driving situations at various speeds. And that means the driving safety training courses will be more realistic and participants will be able to experience up close how brake distances increase, for example, and at what speed they hit their personal limits when it comes to car control.” With the exception of the racing track courses, adventure trips in South Africa and snow and ice training, this is where all BMW Driving Experience driving safety training courses will take place in the future.

Is this different than the BMW Experience setup I saw at the end of the Munich airport last week? They had BMW flags up, and about 10 BMW cars, and it looked like a handling course was setup. The press releases sounds like it's a bigger dedicated field.

I thought they were going to make a performance driving school there. I'm going to lease the F80 M3 in 2014 and was hoping I could hit up the performance driving school to get a solid feel of the vehicle before I hit up the Nurburgring in the new car. Oh well, I guess I'll just take it a little more easy on the ring like I did with my E92.

Is this different than the BMW Experience setup I saw at the end of the Munich airport last week? They had BMW flags up, and about 10 BMW cars, and it looked like a handling course was setup. The press releases sounds like it's a bigger dedicated field.

That is a low to medium speed course(more autocross setup than track). It is not as big as the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield in Maisach.

Is this different than the BMW Experience setup I saw at the end of the Munich airport last week? They had BMW flags up, and about 10 BMW cars, and it looked like a handling course was setup. The press releases sounds like it's a bigger dedicated field.

Yeah, I saw the same setup a couple of days ago after we did the ED drop-off. Seemed like a short-course for training with a few professional drivers and a small open track to test out couple of the Ms there. Seemed interesting though.